xii, 386 pages : 23 cm

In this wide-ranging and incisive collection, writers, journalists, scholars and ordinary viewers explore the film and Annie Proulx's original story as well as 'Brokeback Mountain's' ongoing cultural and political significance

Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction: the pasts and futures of a story and a film / William R. Handley -- Gay or universal story? initial debates and cultural contexts. Men in love: is Brokeback Mountain a gay film? / David Leavitt -- An affair to remember / Daniel Mendelsohn -- Response to "An affair to remember" / James Schamus -- The magic mountain / Andrew Holleran -- Backs unbroken: Ang Lee, forbearance, and the closet / Mun-Hou Lo -- Miles to go and promises to keep : homophobic culture and gay civil rights. Back to the ranch ag'in: Brokeback Mountain and gay civil rights / James Morrison -- Breaking no ground: why Crash won, why Brokeback lost, and how the academy chose to play it safe / Kenneth Turan -- "Jack, I swear": some promises to gay culture from mainstream Hollywood / Chris Freeman -- "Better two than one": the shirts from Brokeback Mountain / Gregory Hinton -- American Eden: nature, homophobic violence, and the social imaginary / Colin Carman -- West of the closet, fear on the range / Alex Hunt -- Adapting "Brokeback Mountain," queering the western. Interview between Michael Silverblatt and Annie Proulx -- In the shadow of the tire iron / Alan Dale -- Adapting Annie Proulx's story to the mainstream multiplex / Adam Sonstegard -- Not so lonesome cowboys: the queer western / Judith Halberstam -- Public responses and cultural appropriations. "One dies, the other doesn't": Brokeback and the blogosphere / Noah Tsika -- Making sense of the Brokeback paraphenomenon / David Weiss -- Alberta, authenticity, and queer erasure / Jon Davies -- Scenes of work and experience in the rural west. Real gay cowboys and Brokeback Mountain / Patricia Nell Warren -- Marx on the mountain: pleasure and the laboring body / Vanessa Osborne -- Personal borders / Martin Aguilera -- Sympathy, melodrama, and passion. Mother twist: Brokeback Mountain and male melodrama / Susan McCabe -- Passion and sympathy in Brokeback Mountain / Calvin Bedient

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